PowerCenter provides an environment that allows you to load data into a centralized location, such as a Data Warehouse or operational data store (ODS). You can extract data from multiple sources, transform the data according to business logic you build in the client application, and load the transformed data into file and relational targets.

PowerCenter – Domain

PowerCenter – Nodes

PowerCenter – Repository Service

PowerCenter – Integration Service

Informatica Domain:

It is an administrative unit consisting nodes and services. These nodes and services can be further categorized into folders and sub folders. There are basically two types of services in the Informatica Domain- Service Manager and Application Services. While the former is responsible for authenticating/authorizing the logging and running the application services, the latter represents the integration services, repository services and reporting services.

Repository Service:

This service maintains a connection between the clients and PowerCenter repository. It is a multi-threaded process that fetches, inserts and updates the metadata. It also maintains a uniformity within the repository metadata.

Nodes:

Nodes are the computing platforms where the aforementioned services are executed.

A node is the logical representation of a machine in a domain. One node in the domain acts as a gateway to receive service requests from clients and route them to the appropriate service and node. Services and processes run on nodes in a domain.

Different Types of Nodes.

Gateway Node:

A gateway node is any node you configure to serve as a gateway for the domain. One node acts as the gateway at any given time. That node is called the master gateway. A gateway node can run application services, and it can serve as a master gateway node. The master gateway node is the entry point to the domain.

Worker Node:

A worker node is any node not configured to serve as a gateway. A worker node can run application services, but it cannot serve as a gateway.

Reporting Service:

Reporting services are responsible for handling the metadata and allowing other services to access the same.

Integration Service:

This service is the engine that executes the tasks created in the Informatica Power Center tool. It is nothing but a process inside the server waiting for the tasks (both ad-hoc and scheduled) to be assigned. As soon as a workflow is executed, the integration service gets the details and executes it.

Let’s take an example where a user executes a workflow

Informatica instructs the integration service to execute the workflow

The integration service reads workflow details from the repository

Integration service starts execution of the tasks inside the workflow

Once execution is complete, the status of the task is updated i.e. failed, succeeded or aborted.

After completion of execution, session log and workflow log is generated.

This service is responsible for loading data into the target systems

The integration service also combines data from different sources

For example, it can combine data from any relational source like (oracle, SQL Server, Teradata) and a flat file source.

So, Informatica’s Integration service is a process which receives instructions from ad-hoc jobs or scheduled jobs for tasks to be assigned for the execution. When we execute a workflow, the integration service receives a notification to execute the workflow. Then the integration service reads the workflow to know the details like which tasks it has to execute like mappings & at what timings. Then the service reads the task details from the repository and proceeds with the execution.